V8 improvements on ARM
We don’t often comment on articles written by staff members at our favourite technology company, but its latest article piqued our interest. It explains the relevance of the Open Source V8 Codec and how the contributions made by ARM and many other companies and individuals have led to significant improvements in performance.
We know that ARM processors are improving at a phenomenal pace, but what we often forget is the impact of the software they run. The article highlights how the latest V8 codec is many times faster than the version available just 12 months ago. Using the same hardware platform, the benchmarks highlight an improvement of up to 500% – impressive. The jump from a single-core Cortex-A8 to a dual-core Cortex-A9 is an approximate 2x gain in performance. Any software gain in software will seem like even more.
The author points out that the current V8 Codec will not be available in products until sometime in H2 2011, and goes on to tease us with even more optimisations in the pipeline for the upcoming Cortex-A15 super-processor. Well worth a read.
It’s surprising how much of the web is Java Script. The text of the article on the ARM website is, in fact, a Javascript script!
If that’s repeated all over the web, then V8 is really going to make a difference to web browsing. I can hardly wait!
Les
April 23, 2011 at 10:00 am
Les and others: Do you know (can you find out) if Angry Bird is Java Script (which means it is interpreted at run time)? or is it compiled (delivered as an executable binary)?
I am asking this because I asked the MIPS CEO at a meeting recently and he did not know. I wanted to know if most smartphone apps needs to be recomplied or not to switch from ARM to MIPS.
fan
April 23, 2011 at 2:35 pm
Angry birds for ARM leverages the native SDK which means it is compiled and then delivered as a binary. See http://blogs.arm.com/arm-events/397-arm-partners-in-the-mwc-spotlight-%E2%80%93-enjoy-this-inside-look-at-arm-technology/
However Angry birds is available for other platforms.
Most Android Apps are, I believe, written in Java. Confusingly, Java and Javascript are not the same thing. Java is compiled to run on a virtual machine (JVM) while javascript is text embedded in the html.
Les
April 23, 2011 at 5:40 pm
Good news for games on webOS.
Also good news for node.js on ARM. Might be useful in servers.
Andrew Jones
May 2, 2011 at 11:41 pm
Please let me know if you’re looking for a author for your blog. You have some really good articles and I feel I would be a good asset. If you ever want to take some of the load off, I’d love to write some articles for your blog in exchange for a link
back to mine. Please send me an e-mail if interested.
Cheers!
sonic producer mac free
May 3, 2013 at 4:47 am